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The session “Big deals digitalization: the government vs state corporations” was held on October 23 at the Open Innovations Forum with the support of Digital Economy ANO and Innovation Promotion Fund.

Participants of the session have discussed how to most effectively implement roadmaps for the development of end-to-end digital technologies in Russia, approved by the government two weeks ago. The implementation of projects will require more than 950 billion rubles. Almost 720 billion of them are extrabudgetary funds. The main burden of the development of promising solutions in high-tech areas will be assigned to the largest companies having state participation interest.

Each of the seven roadmaps has already received its curator among state-owned companies. Russian Railways will deal with quantum communications, Sberbank with artificial intelligence and neurotechnology, Rostec with distributed registry technologies and wireless communications for Internet of things, Rosatom with quantum computing and technologies for creating new materials and substances, and Rostelecom and Rostec together will develop 5G communications.

As part of the implementation of roadmaps, Skolkovo can assume the functions of an expert platform, noted Fund Chairman Arkady Dvorkovich: “We will not manage the process. But the examination of projects to support and create equal opportunities for everybody is our possible function”.

“Each country that thinks about a focused policy of technological development must at one point answer one question. Will it be a policy pursued from above with priorities defined above, regardless of what the market wants to do? Or will it still support initiatives from below? We must come to terms with the fact that companies may not want to do exactly what the state wants them to do. We are now trying to walk through the middle. Our government planned to allocate a certain amount of money to support projects, and then began to wonder where we would spend it. And it reasonably limited itself to formulation requirements to these technologies”, said Vladislav Onishchenko, Head of the Analytical Center under the Government of Russia.

Rosatom Digitalization Director Ekaterina Solntseva said that although the state corporation is responsible for the development of a certain area, organizing work on these technologies is actually exercised by development institutions. “When the company signs agreements and assumes certain obligations, they cannot be separated from its authorities. If we are responsible for the result nationwide, then we will organize this work. We organize it not within ourselves, but in a comprehensive manner, also on a national scale. Because no one, not even the largest company, will be able to achieve the tasks set in the framework of the technological development plan alone”, emphasized Ekaterina Solntseva.

RVC General Director Alexander Povalko, in a discussion about which projects can be considered complex, said: “In my opinion, the complexity of the project should not be determined by the amount of money invested in it, but rather by the complexity of the tools that must be implemented, and cooperation associated therewith”.

The discussion was also attended by the Director of Digital Technologies of ANO Digital Economy Sergey Nakvasin, Deputy CEO of Innovations Promotion Fund Pavel Gudkov, Vice President for Strategic Initiatives of Rostelecom Boris Glazkov, Vice President of Russian Direct Investment Fund Stanislav Pozharnov.